Experts said a U.N. plan to upgrade “space weather” forecasts can help the world cope with solar storms that might rack up to $2 trillion in damages if the sun repeated a giant flare of 1859.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the sun is entering a more active phase due to peak in 2013 on about 11-year sunspot cycle. Power supplies, air traffic control, communications and satellites can all be disrupted by storms.

“We are increasingly being impacted by space weather,” Barbara Ryan, director of the space weather program at the Geneva-based WMO, told Reuters.

According to Reuters, there was a need to coordinate forecasts and upgrade warnings of looming storms.

“No country has enough resources alone … we need observations from all over the globe,” she said. “A common alerting protocol (is) an issue we will be looking at over the next couple of years” to help limit impacts. [Full Story]